Rain Gardens for the Bays Campaign

Rain gardens are gaining steam and we wanted to make sure that everyone is getting on board! The Mid-Atlantic Region has an excellent site linking to numerous sources on green infrastructure also, read the earlier Rain Garden blog here and join us in the Rain Gardens for the Bays Campaign to keep our waters healthy and protect our communities from flooding and polluted run-off during storms.  We encourage individuals, community groups, watershed associations, municipalities and others to design and build rain gardens in their community. 

The Rain Gardens for the Bays Campaign is supported by the Mid-Atlantic National Estuary Programs, state and local partners. The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, the Center for the Inland Bays and the Maryland Coastal Bays are collaborating to encourage healthier bays by creating thousands of rain gardens in our backyards, school campuses, town halls, libraries, local businesses and on our corporate lands.

“Improving water quality of our bays and local waterways is among our highest priorities as a state,” said Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin O’Mara. “Rain gardens are sustainable, affordable and particularly effective in capturing rain water, mitigating flooding, creating habitat for local species and reducing up to 80 percent of the pollutants in stormwater runoff.  By planting a rain garden, we can all make a difference in reducing pollution – one garden at a time.”

The Rain Garden for the Bays Campaign includes a new one-stop website, www.raingardensforthebays.org, with easy-to-use information and diagrams on how to design and build a rain garden.  Photos of rain gardens planted throughout the region are posted, and the site encourages the registration of new rain gardens as a way to measure the progress of the campaign. All new rain gardens registered on the website will receive a “Registered Rain Garden” sign to post at their garden.

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